


to swallow the sky

by pr_scatterbrain



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Marriage of convenience, M/M, Multi, Soul Bond, but soulbond instead of marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 13:35:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19319260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr_scatterbrain/pseuds/pr_scatterbrain
Summary: Sidney gets his first formal extension when he is twenty four. It’s given easily and with little fanfare. The second extension is more difficult to obtain. By then more of the players Sidney's age are soulbonded.His third request is denied.





	to swallow the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neveranygoodupthere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveranygoodupthere/gifts).



> To neveranygoodupthere - I hope you enjoy this <3
> 
> Please see end notes for content warnings.

 

At this point, many of us are tempted to ask why.  _ Why on earth should we open those old wounds?  _ we ask, as if we do not scratch them open ourselves all the time. 

_ Waiting,  _ Marya Hornbacher.

_ june, 2006. _

Something happens in the summer after Sidney’s rookie year. 

No one is sure exactly what. 

Then the 911 call is leaked, and everyone thinks they know.

It’s easy to put two and two together. Everyone hears Sidney slurring his words. Boys being boys, rookies being rookies; that’s what people say. It’s a slow news week but even if it wasn’t, stories about Sidney Crosby sell. They always have, and this one is the perfect mix of humour and humiliation. 

The boy next door of hockey calls the police when a house party gets out of hand. 

The future of the NHL narks on his hometown friends for partying too hard. 

It’s that simple; that hilarious. 

It’s the perfect off-season story. The perfect thing to fill inches in sports columns and get people clicking on stories in the lull between covering the playoffs and covering the upcoming draft. It doesn’t take long for it to spread. The hockey world is a small one. 

Even half a world away, Evgeni can’t help but be aware of the news.

_ 2009 - 2010 _

 

Sidney gets his first formal extension when he is twenty two. It’s given easily and with little fanfare towards the tail-end of the season. With a Stanley Cup and a gold Olympic medal to his name, the NHL would give him anything. A little more time to soulbond wasn’t a huge ask. Nor was it an unusual one. Sidney wasn’t alone. Lots of guys were unbonded at his age. 

Evgeni finds out when he comes across the paperwork a few days after the Penguins are knocked out of playoff contention by the Canucks in the first round. It’s left out. The shape of Sidney’s signature is made up of sweeping curves. The same as the one he gives fans. Neat and consistent. Vaguely legible. 

“Another year?” Evgeni asks. 

Sidney shrugs. “Two.”

He doesn’t quite meet Evgeni’s gaze. 

This isn’t something they talk about. Evgeni looks back at the paperwork. This isn’t something Sidney talks about at all, if he has a choice. Often he doesn’t. Evgeni knows this. He’s seen Sidney work around answering questions; his skill in deflection making it look almost easy. He’s seen Sidney turn away bonding offers. He’s always so polite about it. Always so skilled at saying no without directly saying no. 

Now Evgeni is seeing this.

They are due for team drinks. Some of the guys organised it. A goodbye thing. One last get together before they all scatter to the wind. Evgeni is flying out in the morning. Outside, in the car, Alex is waiting. Hopefully he isn’t smoking. He promised he wouldn’t, but that kind of promise only holds so much water with him. It’s easier now, easier than it has been in a while. But still. Evgeni knows better than to leave him by himself for too long. 

He knows Sidney too. 

Evgeni swallows what he wants to say. 

“Good,” Evgeni tells him instead. 

“Yeah?”

Evgeni nods. “Yes.”

Later at the bar when Evgeni is leaning into Alex’s side and they are somewhere between their fifth and sixth drink of the night, he overhears Jordan Staal. 

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” he is telling Sidney. 

His voice carries. Broad tones and soft vowels.

Sidney doesn’t answer. For a moment there is something. A flare in the air. There and gone in an instant. But there.

It leaves a bitter aftertaste in the back of Evgeni’s throat. He is glad when Brooks Orpik reappears with the next round of drinks and Jordan is distracted. 

 

“Two years is a lot of time,” Alex says when they are getting ready for bed. 

His voice is careful. 

They are both careful. It’s been a while since they didn’t have to be.  

Alex is right. Evgeni knows that. But - 

“It’s Sid,” he tells Alex. 

It is. 

Alex doesn’t know the full story. No one does. It’s been a while since Alex heard any of it directly from Evgeni. 

“Two years for us too,” Evgeni finds himself saying. 

He doesn’t know why. 

Maybe if someone else he would regret his words. 

Half undressed, Alex stills. His hands pausing on the buttons on his shirt. 

No one expected Alex to come to watch the Penguins in the playoffs after the Capitals were knocked out. Even with their bond, Evgeni had thought they would meet up in Moscow during the summer. Things between then are better now. Better than they have been in a long time. Yet Alex is still Alex to Evgeni. Not Sanja or any of the soft names Evgeni used to use. There is a delineation in Evgeni’s mind and in his mouth. 

Sometimes he is Zhenya to Alex. It’s felt more than said between them. Outside them, outside the connection of their bond, Alex will say it aloud. Will let the softness of it form in his mouth, but say it like it’s his to say. Like it is another thing he has a right to. Evgeni isn’t sure if it should hurt. It’s hard to know. A lot of things hurt.

Two years.

Two years of radio silence after one bad night at a Moscow nightclub. Alex spent most of it with his mind shut to Evgeni, but not his mouth. Not the force of his body hitting Evgeni’s on the ice either. They might have managed three if it wasn’t for the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games when they were pulled together by their country and forced to talk to each other by their teammates. 

Evgeni exhales. 

It’s been months since the games. 

“Sorry,” he tells Alex, closing his eyes. 

“No,” Alex says. “Don’t apologise.”

Stepping close, he touches the back of Evgeni’s hand. It’s not automatic anymore, but Evgeni turns his hand over and laces their fingers together. 

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Evgeni tries to say. Because he doesn’t. 

He thinks of Sidney in the bar. He thinks of Sidney buying the first round of drinks; the way he always orders bottled water; the way he will mind jackets and coats. And Evgeni thinks of Alex, and the way he came and watched the Penguins play. He sat in the team box and wore one of his more muted game day suits and it’s not like Evgeni doesn’t love him but it was simpler, once. 

There are lines in the sand that they aren’t quite sure how to cross. Maybe this is one of them. It’s hard to know. Hard to remember them all. It’s been a while since Alex was here with Evgeni. Their bodies know each other; their souls; Evgeni feels the coil of caution inside Alex’s hands as if it could be his own. It is, almost.

Sidney drove them home. 

He always is the designated driver because he doesn’t drink. When they pulled up at the traffic lights, Evgeni remembers how he had looked at Sidney. He wasn’t sure what he was  looking for, but he looked at him. Looked until Alex touched his thigh. 

“He’s not going anywhere,” Alex tells Evgeni now. Reminds him. 

Not yet, anyway. 

Evgeni exhales. 

“Zhenya,” Alex says. 

“I know,” Evgeni says and he does know. 

Only - 

“He’s my friend.”

It comes out wrong. There is something too raw about it. 

Everyone knows what happens to players who don’t soulbond by the league deadline.

Everyone knows that Alex and Evgeni bonded young. 

It’s different for Sidney. Evgeni knows that. So many things are different in the NHL. But this - 

It wasn’t like this for Evgeni. Not like it is for Sidney. He knows that. He isn’t allowed to forget that. 

“I’m tired,” Evgeni tells Alex. 

He is. 

His body feels weary and worn; the weight of the season, the weight of two seasons. 

“Me too,” Alex tells him. 

That night for the first time in a long time Alex curls his body around Evgeni’s, tucking him close. It shouldn’t help, but it does. A little. 

“It’ll be okay,” Alex whispers. “Don’t worry.”

_ 2011- 2012 _

The offseason passes quickly. 

It’s a blur of beaches and sun and freckles across Evgeni’s shoulders. 

Under the sun he trains with a mix of old and new friends. Some faces are more familiar than others. Sergei Gonchar visits Evgeni in St Petersburg, but doesn’t stay. Neither does Alexander Semin, Alex’s teammates from the Capitals. Apart from a few short weeks spent holidaying separately, most of Evgeni’s summer is spent with Alex, who is achingly clever and vivid in a way that Evgeni had almost forgotten. It is easy to get caught up. It’s easy too, to fall back in love with him. To fall into his bed like Evgeni had never left. 

Maybe it shouldn’t be, but Evgeni’s heart was never much good. Everyone knew that. 

 

 

In the early weeks of the pre-season Alex is made Captain of the Capitals. 

It is a glorious moment. The joy Alex feels is incandescent and Evgeni’s body doesn’t feel big enough to hold it. Even separated by hundreds of miles t overflows from Alex and reverberates through Evgeni.

“Our boy’s on fire,” Max says, when they are lacing up. 

Evgeni feel like he is. He feels like he could swallow the world. 

He wants to laugh. He can’t help laughing. Everyone knows why and maybe the Capital’s are the Penguins rivals but that doesn’t matter. Not really. Not even that the Caps won the last time they played each other. 

Everyone knew Alex was going to get the C. 

The Capitals were always going to be his team, much like the Penguins were always going to be Sidney’s. Maybe Alex could accepted the captaincy after the Vancouver Games, but he waited. The timing of all it is something that Evgeni doesn’t quite understand, though he thinks perhaps Sidney might.

“Want me to send congratulations for you?” Evgeni asks. 

Sidney’s mouth twitches. 

“I don’t think so.”

Sidney offers them publicly to the press anyway. 

Evgeni doesn’t. He manages to steal a day and a half to fly over to Washington to celebrate. Together they drink too much and exchange sloppy handjobs in a bathroom stall at some slick club. It’s all black marble and American’s and Alex’s teammates insist it’s the hardest place in all of Washington D.C to get into, but Evgeni only really cares about getting into Alex’s pants. That’s pretty easy. 

“If you really wanted to congratulate me you could blow me,” Alex suggests. 

The corner of his mouth twitches, and Evgeni can’t help but kiss him again and again and again. 

“My hand not good enough?” Evgeni asks, biting at Alex’s neck. 

He scored a game winning goal last week. Everyone had talked about his wrist shot technique. 

Alex shrugs. “They’re pretty nice.” 

He’s got one of his own hands on Evgeni’s neck, his thumb stroking a circle. The other is under his shirt, touching his side. The warmth of his palms echoes through Evgeni’s body and back into Alex’s. It’s a high like no other.

“But you want my mouth?”

Alex’s eyes are dark. “I always want that.”

It’s not particularly romantic, but fuck romance. Fuck Alex too, who pushes Evgeni to his knees. The tiled bathroom floor isn’t good for them, but fuck it. Evgeni doesn’t really care. Alex is nosy and easy and Evgeni is just as easy for him as he has always been. 

Everyone knows what they are doing. 

Alex likes that too. 

He is on the top of the world and Evgeni can’t take his eyes off him. 

By the time Evgeni makes it back to Pittsburgh Evgeni is hung over and only just manages not to throw up at practice. He still ends up swaying dangerously in the locker room. The steam from the showers it too hot and his stomach rolls at the stench of stale sweat. The guys are talking about lunch; their voices are so loud and the noise bounces off the hard tiled surfaces. 

“Want a lift home?” Sidney offers.

It’s an excuse that Evgeni grabs with both hands. 

In Evgeni’s first year in the NHL, he got used to the way Sidney would end up by his side; tucked next to him at bars, sitting close on the team bus. 

“You’re easy,” Sidney told him once. 

Sidney isn’t.

Evgeni likes Sidney. He is one of Evgeni’s best friends. Their friendship has always been uncomplicated and based on a shared understanding, but Sidney himself isn’t easy. He is prickly and picky and he wears blinkers and Evgeni likes him. Sidney is honest and he is true. He demands the best of himself and when Evgeni is around him, Evgeni finds himself doing the same. 

It’s harder, Evgeni knows, for the unbonded guys. 

Parts of Sidney ache. He probably should have been benched for most of Evgeni’s rookie season. He wasn’t, but he should have been. There were weeks when it felt like he was bleeding out on the ice. He was scoring; producing and winning. But his soul was painfully raw. 

Everyone has heard the leaked 911 call. 

Only the guys on the ice felt Sidney’s soul; felt the unfinished soulbond. 

Evgeni can feel echoes of it sometimes. Most of the time it’s numb. Cauterised. Something distant. It only flares up when pressed. Some wounds that never quite heal. 

In Sidney’s car, Evgeni closes his eyes. The arm of his sunglasses press awkwardly into the soft skin of his ear, but the glass is cool against his face. For a moment he feels Alex’s mind brush against his. He didn’t have practice today, and it feels like he is only just waking up. Evgeni is envious. He had to get up before dawn to catch his flight. Alex was sleeping off their hungover when Evgeni left. 

The way Alex slumber fades to consciousness is wordless, as is the way that he reaches out for Evgeni. 

Evgeni can’t help but respond. Blinking as he takes off his sunglasses. Then a curse forms on the tip of Evgeni’s tongue; Alex. It feels a little like they are teenagers again. 

“Everything okay?” Sidney asks when they pull up at the traffic lights. 

Evgeni shrugs. “Too much shots.” 

This makes Sidney laugh. 

Sidney feels quiet today. Evgeni can feel him; his soul. Lately it’s been tender. But it’s not painful. The unbonded guys feel it differently. More acutely, Evgeni thinks. There is a pull to Sidney’s soul. 

Flower keeps setting Sidney up. 

It’s not like Sidney has to soulbond with a hockey player. The NHL would like that. It would look good, especially if it was one of his linemates. But they would settle for a bond; a settling influence. The week before last Flower set Sidney up with another one of his friends from home. 

Sidney complains about it when Evgeni manages to convince him to stay for lunch. 

Sidney shouldn’t have to bond at all, if he doesn’t want to. 

Evgeni can’t say that, but he can listen. He can laugh too, when Sidney confesses that he didn’t think Flower’s friend actually cared about Sidney’s opinion about the state of youth hockey in Canada in comparison to America. 

“Good,” Evgeni tells Sidney and getting a squawk in return. “You’re wrong.” 

Sidney probably isn’t. Evgeni really doesn’t know. But Evgeni enjoys disagreeing with him whenever he gets the chance. It’s good for Sidney, Evgeni thinks.  

Two years is a lifetime. 

So much can happen in a single day, let alone a couple of years.

Evgeni would know that better than most. 

 

“Does it hurt?” Evgeni remembers asking Sidney once, when he was a little drunk and probably very stupid.

“All the time.” 

And then Sidney laughed. 

“Does yours hurt?”

Evgeni’s bond with Alex? 

Evgeni makes a face. Inside himself, in that place that isn’t his but is his, he feels the warmth of Alex.

“No, feels okay.”

It feels like Alex is paying attention, a little, as Evgeni pokes at him. At a distance it isn’t really more than that. Sometimes he gets a few words. A phrase. Sometimes a vision of something. Usually the ice or a puck. 

“Fuck,” Sidney swears. 

Sidney isn’t drunk because he doesn’t get drunk in public. He is nursing his second beer of the evening. Someone put it in his hands after Evgeni drank the first one. 

He is beautiful, Evgeni thinks. The dark curl of his hair, the long line of his neck and the sharp edge of his jaw. He is sad, Evgeni think. Someone hurt him, he thinks. But they don’t talk about that. No one talks about that. Apart from the people who do. The players who ask if Sidney wants to bond with them. Or get fucked by them or other crude things. 

Everyone wants to get under Sidney’s skin. Because they - 

“Can’t outplay you,” Evgeni tells Sidney, finishing the thought aloud. 

But it’s not an excuse.

  
  


As a rule, hockey players bond young. Evgeni is no exception. He is seventeen, vaguely angry and wearing a suit that doesn’t quite fit when his bond with Alex is formalised. It happens in Moscow, and is arranged for them. There is little production involved. Just paperwork and hours on the ice. In the old days it was paperwork, a State celebrant, and an agreement witnessed by the coaches of national team. 

“It could be worse,” Alex says, afterwards. 

His face isn’t much better than it was last time Evgeni saw him. 

Evgeni doesn’t love him, but that’s not the point. Not then. 

(Love come as easy as breathing for Evgeni. That isn’t the point either.)

Two years passes quickly. 

A bad hit.

A few bad hits. 

A concussion.

A torn ACL.

Dark rooms and Sidney’s tilting his head to the side to look at Evgeni. 

There is green in his eyes and Evgeni can’t move. He sleeps instead. Tangles in it. 

Pain makes things blur. It feels like a song, jumping forward and looping back. 

On the other side of it, Sidney is granted another extension. This one isn’t given as easily. By this time it is a different story. Most of Sidney’s peers are bonded or at the very least, pre-bonded. This time Sidney has to submit evidence. Documentation is required. A committee is involved. They deliborate for a week. 

In the end, Sidney receives an additional year. 

“Sid,” Evgeni says. 

“It’s fine,” Sidney tells him.

It doesn’t feel like a lie. It feels like a plee. It feels like Evgeni’s heart being broken.

It can’t last and it doesn’t. 

In 2012, Sidney is refused an extension. 

It’s news. The NHL league is on the verge of a lockout and it’s not like Sidney hasn’t had time. That appears in print. There is commentary. Opinions. There are things said that should never have been said. 

“Come to KHL,” Evgeni says when he calls Sidney. 

He doesn’t want to talk about the outcome of Sidney’s appeal. He - he wants to see Sidney with his own eyes. He wants to steal Sidney away. He wants him here, with Evgeni, on his line and by his side where he belongs.  

“The NHLPA needs me,” Sidney tells him. 

That is probably the truth, but so does Evgeni.

He wants to tell Sidney - 

Evgeni doesn’t know what he wants to tell Sidney. He wants Sidney with him. He wants Sidney safe. He wants him whole and to be wholly his own. 

Flower calls. Kris. Kuni. Duper. 

Mario doesn’t. Or at least he doesn’t call Evgeni. Maybe he can’t. Apparently owners can’t speak to players. Though Evgeni is certain the NHL board of directors are talking about Sidney. Everyone knows that the NHL arranges soulbonds on a case by case basis. Sidney is old by most standards. But he is Sidney Crosby. 

There are rumours circulating already of the candidates that are being listed and debated. Most is bullshit or gossip or both. There is old gossip circulating as well; about that night. The night Sidney called 911. 

Alex was there before Evgeni.

His rookie year was Sidney’s. They were fated as rivels before they had even played their first NHL game. The narrative was an arch outside of them. Written by others and recited by rote. He knew Sidney and Sidney knew him long before Evgeni did. 

There are stories. There are rumours. But no one knows exactly what happened between the end of Sidney’s first NHL season and the beginning of his second. Only that something had happened. 

“What was he like before?” Evgeni finds himself asking Alex.

Because Alex was there. He was there before it happened, when Sidney was glittering and brilliant, and free in a way Evgeni had never known. 

Part of what Evgeni is imagining must be shared with Alex. He mouth falls open, his eyes soft. 

“I didn’t know him well then,” 

That year, that lost year. 

Evgeni wasn’t there. Evgeni never got to know Sidney before. 

 

It’s a story now. A funny anecdote. The 911 call Sidney made during the off season after his rookie year when a friends house party got out of hand. The stories write themselves. It is his first off season, his first time home after making and breaking more than his fair share of NHL records. 

No one really talks about it. Some of the Flyers still chirp Sidney about it, but they have richer more current material now.

But it happened. Something happened. 

Something that resulted in Sidney’s soul being cleaved open.

“It was a lake party,” Sidney tells him. 

Evgeni takes his hand and laces their fingers together. 

“They were my friend.” 

Sidney swallowed. 

Evgeni had watched. He didn’t let go of Sidney’s hand, so Sidney used the other to cover his eyes.

 

Sidney has never known Evgeni without Alex. Hardly anyone has. Not in the States.  

Most Russian players arrive to the NHL bonded. That’s the punchline to a joke that’s been told since the 80s. It’s taken care of early, and done out of sight. In the old days it happened like clockwork. But then, in those days the Red Army didn’t just play hockey, they lived cheek by jowl for most of the year. Soulbonds were like washes of watercolour paints. Centers bonded with their wingers, wingers with defence, goalies with their backups. All configurations. All of them, almost. 

They moved as one on the ice. 

They were one, on and off the ice. 

What was myth and what was truth? (Does it even matter?)

Evgeni grows up in the aftermath. He grows up after the fall, after the defection, in what remains. Mostly he grows up without anyone watching him. There isn’t much to watch. Not until he has his first growth spurt at fifteen. Before that he is just one of dozens of boys that are enrolled in the Metallurg Hockey School train. He is liked by his coaches, by his teammates, but it isn’t enough. It helps. But it isn’t enough. 

He fights for every inch, every minute on the ice. 

Every loss is one he takes personally, and every win is a rush of blood to the head. 

He doesn’t make it easy for himself. He doesn’t know how. 

His brother worries. He sees more than most. He is the one to touch Evgeni’s hands when they become fists and to wrap his arms around Evgeni’s shoulders when he comes home from tournaments with another broken bond. 

“You don’t make anything easy for yourself,” Denis tells him. 

Evgeni laughs. It turns into a sob. 

He wouldn’t know how. 

Denis takes Evgeni’s bag and swings it over his shoulders. For a moment his mind brushes Evgeni’s. It’s familiar and foreign at once. It’s like trying to catch smoke. Evgeni feels himself reach out anyway. 

Habit, maybe. 

There are tender edges inside Evgeni. Papercuts. And he aches. He always aches. It’s easier on the ice. Everything seems to narrow, to come into sharp relief. Maybe that is what is wrong with him. He’s never settled in his skin. He’s always dreaming. Always wanting more than he has. Always fighting. Always bonding. 

Evgeni bonds easy. Everyone knows this. 

“It’s your heart,” his mother tells him when he is young. 

Bringing a hand up, she touches his cheek. It’s bruised. A puck. He had it, then he didn’t. There was a hit and then there was the impact into the boards. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It just looks bad. 

He is a worry. He knows that. 

The bonds he forms are childlike. The wax and wane as his linemates change. Most are one sided by the time he debuts in the Super League. By then most of his teammates are already bonded. Those bonds are steady and sure. From the outside Evgeni can sense the shape of them. The depth of them. They vibrate when he reaches out for them. His hockey shifts. He adapts. 

Things clicks, when he sees Alex. 

They had, right from the beginning. 

When they meet, Alex is considered the one to watch out of the two of them. On the ice he cuts his own path. There is a very precise form of brutality to the way he plays. Off the ice there is the same brutality to his smile, and the way he catches Evgeni looking at him. 

They bond as easy as breathing. 

It’s hard to know if it happens on the ice or in hotel rooms. 

They fuck for the first time in their hotel room in Hämeenlinna. It’s messy and not particularly good. 

Evgeni is a virgin. More or less. Or he was. 

He doesn’t tell Alex. 

Alex knows anyway. 

Alex always knows. 

Alex is Evgeni’s soulmate. Of course he knows. 

“What if we bonded with him?” Alex asks, when Evgeni is in Moscow with Metallurg to play Dynamo. 

His mouth is red and they are tangled up together in bed. 

Inside Evgeni he feels the piece of him which are Alex reach out; wordless. 

“Zhenya?” Alex says when Evgeni doesn’t answer. 

The thought is…

“You love him,” Alex says. “I love him. Why not bond with him?” 

Evgeni swallows. 

“He doesn’t want a soulbond.”

Alex is quiet. His hand strokes a line from his neck down his spine. It’s soothing. Familiar. 

“Maybe he could want us?” he says after a while. 

“Us?”

Alex presses a kiss to the corner of Evgeni’s mouth. 

“Don’t be selfish,” he says. “It doesn’t suit you.”

It is typical of him; boldness and flippancy disguising what he wants. Who he wants. It’s something Evgeni sees through. A flick of feeling, a curve of something in the gut. Alex is never an easy read, not even for Evgeni. He is too careful. But now, in the quiet, curled together, he softens. 

“You’re not the only one to like earnest Canadians.”

It’s enough to make Evgeni smile. 

Evgeni’s mind skips ahead. Alex keeps pace. 

“How?” Evgeni asks. 

Sex is easy. Sex is how most bonds are forged. Drugs make it easier. Easier than the alternative. 

Or it would be, for someone else. 

“Who knows him better than you?” Alex asks, always one step ahead waiting for Evgeni. 

His face is all angles and sharpness. But he isn’t particularly cutting. 

A resolution to the lockout comes while they are sleeping. 

The news is waiting in a few dozen texts and messages when they wake.  

A call to home is sounded when news publicly breaks that the lockout has ended.

The season is saved. 

The clock is ticking. 

Evgeni flies to Moscow so he can fly back to the states with Alex. In the plane, Alex takes Evgeni’s hand during the take off. They fly the first leg together. There is enough space to sprawl and spread out in first class, but Evgeni leans his knee against Alex’s. His body thrums with excitement. So does Alex’s. The echo bounces between them. It lights up Evgeni’s nervous system.

They could play on the same team. There are rules and clauses, subsections and precedents. There are laws, both American and International. 

Even as Russians, they have protection. 

It’s long forgotten now, but there was once talk at the draft that the Penguins were wasting their pick when they chose to draft Evgeni. The Capitals could have claimed both him and Alex with their first draft pick. But Evgeni never wanted that. Neither did Alex. For all that their bond was encouraged by the National Team as a way to strengthen the offensive power of the team as a whole, their bond was their own. 

They are different. Their bond has always been their own. Back in the beginning, Evgeni remembers talk of their bond breaking due to the distance that separated them. Even during the worst of their feud, Evgeni held onto the bond - to Alex, who understood him. 

Alex, who understands this. 

“Tell me how it goes,” Alex says when they part. 

Evgeni shrugs. 

He can’t make any promises. 

In person Sidney is healthy and bright and whole. Evgeni tries but he can’t help but press a kiss to his dark hair when he wraps his arms around him and hugs him tightly. 

Evgeni had been so worried. 

“I’m fine,” Sidney tells him. “I promise.”

He is. 

He is and he isn’t. 

“I’m not talking about that,” he tells Evgeni. 

Evgeni hears him say the same thing to Flower. To Kris. To Duper. To Kuni. To everyone who asks. 

“I have idea,” Evgeni tells Kris at practice, while they are in the gym 

Kris gives him a look. 

“Are you going to handle it like Jordy and Colby and Max all tried to handle it?” he asks. 

Evgeni swears at him. 

“So that’s a yes,” Kris says. “I hope you have a better plan than them.”

Well, Evgeni isn’t going to propose to Sidney while he is naked in the showers like Max did, so he’s off to a better start than him.

Sidney flares when Evgeni proposes a three way bond. 

“Please,” Evgeni says. 

“No,” Sidney tells him. “No.”

The following morning Evgeni is woken by Sidney knocking on his door. 

“You have key,” Evgeni tells him.

It’s too early and Evgeni is jetlagged. He mostly wants to sleep. 

But Sidney looks awful. 

“What if I accepted?” he asks, on Evgeni’s doorstep. “What would happen?”

Evgeni hand tenses, gripping the door handle and releasing it. 

“What do you want to happen?”

Sidney tenses. 

“I don’t want to - ”

He can’t finish. 

Evgeni swallows. “I don’t want that either.”

He doesn’t. 

He knows about how some soulbonds are formed. He knows not every bond is formed like Evgeni’s bond with Alex. 

He doesn’t want to hurt Sidney. He would never. 

A pre-bond would settle his NHL contract requirements. Maybe the NHL would prefer one of their picks for Sidney. Even after all this time, there are opinions held about Russians. But a bond is a bond.

He thinks maybe, they are a little bonded already. No one knows Sidney’s hockey better than Evgeni. Few know Sidney better than Evgeni. 

He tries to say that. It comes out clumsy. He knows it does. English is so imprecise.

No. Evgeni has never made it easy for himself. Not them and now now. 

He loves Sidney though. Loves Alex too. Loves them both unendingly. 

They bond on the ice. 

They bond on free days, when Alex is able to fly out. 

They bond in Evgeni’s home, fitting Sidney into the curl of their bodies. 

They bond on Sidney’s timeline. 

It happens slowly. Inch by once. One step forward, two back. It happens on Sidney’s terms. 

Maybe they won’t ever bond the way the NHL encourages, but there is a place in Evgeni that is opaque. It forms in the space between blades hitting the ice and exhaled breath. No one notices. There isn’t much that belongs to Evgeni but this does. So he keeps it.  There are stories and their is the truth. Evgeni knows the difference. 

He knows his own heart. And he knows Alex’s like his own. 

Alex kisses Sidney, first as always. 

It’s a pretty thing, seeing them together. The size of Alex’s hand cradling his jaw, and the way he smiles afterwards when they break apart. 

“Nice,” he tells Sidney, like it is some kind of verdict. 

Evgeni very much wants to fit himself between them and see for himself, but he holds himself back. They can’t rush this. It’s too important. 

Sidney is worth the wait. No one knows that better than them. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: forced soulbonds by the nhl/khl and by one of Sidney's friends who tried (unsuccessfully) to bond with him without his consent at a party after Sidney's rookie year. There is trauma associated with both forms of bonding and discussion around this. Given the reveals won't take place until july 3rd and thus I won't be able to answer any questions privately, take care when choosing to read this.


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